


knock-knock

by bubonickitten



Series: thresholds [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (i gave jon a rough time in this one. as jonny sims intended i GUESS), (seriously - a lot a lot of spider imagery and fear of spiders stuff.), Angst, Arachnophobia, Canon-Typical Elias, Canon-Typical spiders, Gen, Screenplay/Script Format, Season/Series 03, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), and then gloat about it. bc elias is full bastard, basically elias decides to implant knowledge of what happened to mr. spider's victim, into jon's head, up to MAG 92
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubonickitten/pseuds/bubonickitten
Summary: Statement of an unnamed childhood bully regarding a fatal encounter with Mr. Spider. Statement procured by Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, for the edification of one Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.
Series: thresholds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737607
Comments: 47
Kudos: 320





	knock-knock

**Author's Note:**

> While relistening to the scenes where Elias implants knowledge into Melanie's and Martin's minds, I got to thinking, "What if he did that to Jon?" and... yeah. 
> 
> [There are a few verbatim lines I used from the podcast itself; they're all marked by an asterisk.]
> 
> [A lot of unsettling spider imagery in this one, so just. Be aware of that if you have any degree of arachnophobia.]

**ARCHIVIST**

I never chose this.*

**ELIAS**

You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to _see_. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean, but we make them nonetheless.*

[SILENCE.]

**ELIAS**

You seem uncertain, Jon. Do you need convincing? _[sighs]_ Very well. Shall we discuss the very first door you chose to open?

**ARCHIVIST**

What do you –

**ELIAS**

_A Guest for Mr. Spider._ A particularly nasty book, wasn’t it? How did you describe it?

**ARCHIVIST**

I – I don't –

**ELIAS**

“A violence seemed to ooze from it, sticky and pungent—”*

**ARCHIVIST**

_Stop it._

**ELIAS**

“—I had no idea what was inside, but I knew I hated that book—”*

**ARCHIVIST**

You’ve made your point.

**ELIAS**

“And I knew that wasn’t going to stop me from opening it.”*

[A PAUSE.]

**ELIAS**

Your… childhood bully, I believe you called him. You don’t remember his name, of course, but you remember what happened to him – or so you think. But you don’t have the _whole_ picture stored away in your memory, do you? No. He died alone, behind the door you ushered him through. You couldn’t face the thing that took him.

**ARCHIVIST**

I – I was _eight_ –

**ELIAS**

Oh, Jon. We both know that survivor’s guilt is rarely _rational_. You agonize over hypotheticals, let your vivid imagination run wild with all the gruesome possibilities of what happened after the door closed behind him.

[A LONG PAUSE.]

**ELIAS**

_[with a smile in his voice]_ Do ever wonder what his statement might have been like, had he lived long enough to give it?

**ARCHIVIST**

_[brusquely]_ No.

**ELIAS (STATEMENT)**

He knows from the moment he cracks open the book that he is pinned beneath the might of something _other_.

**ARCHIVIST**

Don't –

**ELIAS (STATEMENT)**

_[overriding]_ Before he drinks in the first page, he is flooded with dread and his only wish is to cast the book into the gutter and run until his legs fail him. Instead, he finds his eyes locked on the words, scanning feverishly left to right without his input, and when he tries to shut his eyes, he finds that he cannot even blink. He has the sudden, unshakable impression that some tacky substance is pulling on his eyelids, holding them in place; his eyes begin to dry and sting and still he _stares_ , riveted—

[FAINT STATIC.]

**ARCHIVIST**

_[compellingly]_ Elias, _stop –_

**ELIAS**

_[a short laugh]_ You need more practice before you can command me, Jon.

Besides, you’re riveted, too, aren’t you? You tell yourself you don’t want to hear this, but you _do_ – there is a guilty part of you that believes you deserve to suffer through this knowledge, but that’s not all, is it? Eclipsing your guilt is the simple desire to _know_. To observe, to fill all gaps in the testimony.

So sit, and listen, and drink it all in.

[ANOTHER PAUSE. THE ARCHIVIST TAKES A SHAKY BREATH.]

**ELIAS**

_[self-satisfied]_ Good.

**ELIAS (STATEMENT)**

He turns the page. He does not want to turn the page, but he is a marionette with gossamer wire wrapped twice, thrice, a dozen times around his wrists and he turns another page, turns another page. Mr. Spider’s legs are shifting and he realizes all at once that so are his own legs, marching him steadily forward – to where, he does not know. He can see nothing except for the book.

He turns another page.

_KNOCK-KNOCK._

The words reach out to him like so many spindly, creeping legs.

He turns the page again, again, _again_ and the considering, hungry eyes of Mr. Spider bore into him like botflies burrowing into flesh.

_MR. SPIDER WANTS ANOTHER GUEST FOR DINNER._

His knees lock and he comes to an abrupt stop. He does not know where he is; his eyes are still glued to the page.

_IT IS POLITE TO KNOCK._

He raises his clenched fist and reaches out.

**ARCHIVIST**

_[strained]_ Elias –

**ELIAS (STATEMENT)**

_[louder]_ When the door creaks open, something in him _releases_ and he is finally, finally allowed to look up.

He wishes he did not.

[THE ARCHIVIST’S BREATHING IS AUDIBLE, QUICKENING.]

**ELIAS (STATEMENT)**

The spider silk winds its way through the crack in the door, sticky and writhing; slowly and deliberately it twines itself around his arms, his knees, his neck, and he is pulled inexorably toward the impossible, palpable darkness that lies behind the door. Something shifts in the shadows and he catches a glimpse of an enormous, bristly limb. It stretches toward him, curls around him in a possessive, many-jointed embrace. The _click-clack_ of mandibles surrounds him as he is drawn in closer, closer, _closer_ , like a doomed fish on a hook. He is pulled past the threshold, and only then is he finally allowed to scream.

[A SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH FROM THE ARCHIVIST.]

**ELIAS**

Spiders are remarkable creatures, aren’t they, Jon? Those eight scuttling legs grant them such agility; all those eyes, watching and waiting; the fragile beauty of the deadly webs they spin. So many millions of years of evolution coming together to weave such perfect little assassins.

They could be anywhere at any time – and that’s what scares you most, doesn’t it, Jon? Any tickle at the back of your neck, any subtle movement out of the corner of your eye, every tentative reach into the murky space under your bed – your mind jumps immediately to the spider. You enter the dusty storage room and it’s not a question of _whether_ they’re there, but _where_ they are. Did you walk through a web just then, or was it your overactive imagination? You run your fingers through your hair, dreading the moment your fingers brush against the spindly legs of an unwelcome passenger, but dreading even more the idea of _not_ checking, of not _knowing_ whether it’s there.

You tell yourself you can manage reading about spiders, but I see what those statements do to you, Jon. As you read, you feel the faint tiptoe of too many legs on your shoulder, the stubborn cling of web on your cheek, the many eyes watching, waiting in the corners of your office. You picture wicked chelicerae, moving independently of one another, dripping with venom that can paralyze, necrotize, tranquilize. Your skin itches, and crawls, and you shudder, and no amount of restive fidgeting will relieve it.

**ARCHIVIST**

That’s _enough_ –

**ELIAS**

_[speaking over him]_ You finish the statement and try to pretend that you aren’t gagging on cobwebs.

You try not to think about the fact that spiders don’t knock, don’t even announce their presence until they’re crawling down your spine.

Unlike you, Mr. Spider’s sacrificial victim never paid any mind to spiders. But when he saw those legs… oh, the primal, gnawing fear that clawed its way out of his throat like so many needling, skittering legs. You didn’t get to hear it, did you, Jon? The door closed on his terror before you were able to behold the full experience of it.

_Feel it now, Jon._

[A PAINED NOISE; PANICKED, HEAVY BREATHING.]

**ELIAS**

There you are. Hear the clicking and snickeringof the monster pulling you into the dark. So many legs, certainly more than eight; so many eyes, hundreds of them – you can’t see them, but you can _feel_ them dissecting you. You are lifted into the air and the legs begin to spin you in slow circles and your mind is flooded with the image of meat turning on a spit. The spider silk clings to you layer upon layer and you think hysterically of all the times you glimpsed a spider preparing a fly, such a small and mundane thing to witness that you never spared it a second thought.

You do not want to think about how spiders feed, but the human mind is predictable and it supplies you with every scrap of information you ever encountered, filed away as insignificant and promptly – you assumed – forgot. You know with crushing certainty that you will be fully encased in web; you will feel yourself suffocating, but what ultimately kills you – slowly, so very slowly – is the spider’s bite. You feel the double puncture of fangs, the digestive enzymes injected into your body, the leisurely liquefaction of your innards. The creature sucks in the visceral slurry, transforming you into a dehydrated husk.

You are conscious for every moment as it wrings the terror and life out of your fragile young body.

[THOUGHTFUL PAUSE.]

**ELIAS**

Do you know what his final thoughts were, Jon? When the fear burned away into numbness, what was left was anger – dull and desiccated, but anger nonetheless, and all of it reserved for _you,_ Jon. An infuriating, arrogant, know-it-all brat with his nose in a book and so many insolent, prying questions.

 _It should have been you,_ he thinks. _This fate was intended for you._

[THE ARCHIVIST TAKES A DEEP, SHUDDERING BREATH, AS IF FIGHTING BACK TEARS.]

**ELIAS**

You still can’t remember his name, can you? He became a mystery, and you let it happen, hoarded the memory to yourself and never told a soul. For all your hungry observations, you have remarkably little consideration for the people who cross your path, don’t you? You devour the details that help you complete whatever puzzle you’re working on, and discard the rest as so much superfluous detritus. I would call it egocentric, but you don’t even prioritize yourself, do you? No, it’s all about the _knowing_. You would sacrifice yourself and anyone unlucky enough to cross your path if it meant satiating your own curiosity.

[ANOTHER PAUSE, AS IF TO ALLOW THE WORDS TO SINK IN.]

**ELIAS**

This isn’t a criticism, Jon. Consider it a performance review. I believe I made the right choice in appointing you as Archivist. You had the temperament for the role long before you ever joined the Institute. You opened the book, you stood on the threshold, you just as good as opened the door. You would be making the same flavor of choices regardless of whether you became my Archivist. You never could tolerate an unsolved mystery.

In any case, if you want to stop the Unknowing, you cannot afford to stand around wringing your hands over what it means to be human. And you won’t allow the Unknowing to happen unopposed. Cling to that conscience as proof of your humanity, if you’d like. 

But more than that, we both know that the Archivist in you can’t leave a question unasked or unanswered. 

[A HEAVY, SHAKY EXHALE.]

**ELIAS**

_[businesslike]_ Now. Do you have any further concerns?

[LONG SILENCE, PUNCTUATED BY THE ARCHIVIST'S RAGGED BREATHING.]

**ELIAS**

Good. Well, I have work to be getting on with. I’ll send you a Return to Work form, but don’t worry about the doctor’s note.*

[THE SOUNDS OF PAPERS RUSTLING, A COMPUTER MOUSE CLICKING, AS ELIAS PRESUMABLY TURNS TO OTHER MATTERS.]

**ELIAS**

_[gloating]_ Do take care, Jon. 

[HARRIED FOOTSTEPS, A DOOR OPENING AND CLOSING. A HEAVY, CHOKED GASP – PERHAPS A SOB – MUTED BY A CLOSED DOOR.]

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on Tumblr at [bubonickitten](https://bubonickitten.tumblr.com/)!


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